


Shacked

by Parhelion



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Canadian Shack, M/M, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Parhelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wolfe has an annoying habit of being good at things he shouldn't be, especially when he can show me up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shacked

We hadn't been shot at, interrogated, or even arrested. What we were was stuck in a Canadian shack.

I'd seen Nero Wolfe in a fix like this once before, back when he was on his mission of vengeance in Montenegro. So I wasn't entirely surprised when he didn't lie down next to the biggest maple tree and refuse to move another inch until someone brought him partridges in _marinade en escabeche_ and a decent edition of Montaigne's _Essays_. Since our fix was mostly his fault, he didn't even sit down on the steps up to the door and complain. He merely got the tight look that results from his mashing his lips together before he parted them to say, "Archie."

"Yes, sir?"

"Is that a half cord of firewood stacked next to this…structure?"

I looked over toward the right side of the shack and frowned. Then I turned back to where the pick-up truck was presently vanishing over a forested ridge. Too late. "Yup. I could claim this place was headquarters for a chair leg manufactory, but that likely wouldn't fly, seeing as how you’re a genius detective and all."

"Archie."

Given the desperation of our circumstances, I fed him the straight line. "Yes, sir?"

"Shut up."

Five minutes later, the suitcases were inside and so were we. Sure enough, all our heating would depend on a fireplace. It looked to be a first-rate affair, complete with stone lining, a decent flue, and a granite mantelpiece. I didn't care. That ice on the brook we'd seen as we were driven in meant we'd have to use the thing tonight. Even now, my breath was visible as I examined our shack and wondered how long it would take to hike back to Abercorn and radiators.

Nero Wolfe is a champion objector to common occurrences: bells ringing, strong perfume, strangers touching him, engines running. His list is long, but lit fireplaces are definitely on it. There are also a few things I dislike. Open fires number somewhere in my top ten. Okay, in my top three.

Wolfe's gaze shifted slowly from the hearth, across the plank floor and the hide rug, past the big frame bed with a checked trade blanket stretched across it, to stop at the locked box high on the rear wall where food was stored against bears. Then he told me, "You. You will climb that so-called ladder to see what is stored in those cupboards."

He might even have sold me on finicky outrage as the reason he'd given me that job. Too bad he didn't wait until he was done speaking to pick up the canvas sling the owner of this place obviously used to transport firewood.

Since he has an annoying habit of being good at things he shouldn't be, especially when he can show me up, I wasn't particularly startled when he had a strong fire going a half-hour later. Eyes narrowed, he worked delicately at something back in the flames with the poker before rising from where he'd knelt to gaze up at the open cupboard and growl, "Well?"

For a moment, I just looked at him.

When I first came to work for Wolfe, I'd wondered if he knew exactly how my parents had died, leaving me stuck with the folks who expected me to play poor orphan boy during the years before I left Ohio. After I'd worked with him for a few years, I decided he probably knew. Now, having watched him dirty up his third best suit building a fire so I wouldn't have to, I knew he knew.

I admit, I might have been a little pleased I could tell him, "Along with that loaf of bread, the milk, the eggs, and the butter we were handed, we have cheddar cheese in wax, potted brown beans, jugged rabbit, two kinds of local fruit preserves, flour, baking powder, chow-chow, pickled fiddleheads, salt, spices, maple bacon, and maple syrup. Someone knew you were coming. Or decided Escoffier might drop by. One or the other."

He relaxed. At least, I was able to tell he'd relaxed. Someone else might have called it a twitch.

Just to keep him from sliding on into complacency, I asked him, "Do you want me to cook?"

"Under no circumstances will you do so," Wolfe said, using what he considered to be a tone of sweet reason, "given that you descended to poutine at lunch." He was also taking down the cooking irons that would have to hang over the fire, ruining another perfectly good bout of pettiness.

I let it go. After all, there was still bedtime. His response to switching from yellow silk sheets to red flannel tartan should be something to see.

And it was, if not exactly in the way I'd expected. Oh, Canada.


End file.
